Jeff Probyn: Regional academies would reduce number of lost players

So that’s the end of European  Rugby Cup Ltd’s  involvement in Europe – and what an end, as both teams ensured that the final was a game worthy of the occasion.
Played under the closed roof at Cardiff, the contest was one of the best finals I have seen, despite it being a pretty one-sided affair with Toulon out-muscling Saracens by a massive 17 point margin.
It was a physical and mental confrontation for the connoisseurs with enough personal battles to ensure a game to remember – but if I am to be churlish, it was a European final with the majority of the players coming from outside Europe.
While I know and respect the free market in professional sport, I have this nagging suspicion that if the majority of players taking part in the final of a major regional competition like the Heineken Cup are not ‘home grown’ then surely, it must damage the future development of rugby within the countries concerned.
This must be particularly true if the two finalists are from the countries with the largest number of senior players in the world game, England have approximately 134,000, France second with some 124,000.
England alone have almost two million youth and junior players which represents nearly 40 percent of the total number of people who play the game worldwide.
That should mean that if England have the right structure for player development they should be exporting players around the world, instead of importing them.
For clubs in the countries with the largest senior playing populations to feel the necessity of relying on retiring internationals from any number of countries to build teams capable of winning regional tournaments, is a damming indictment of the player development that takes place  in those countries.
Here in England, it is the Premiership club academies, funded by the RFU, that undertake the development of young players who are identified by the school county system as potentially elite.
However, if the academies are not producing the quantity of players that the clubs need with the right skills, perhaps it’s time for the RFU to reassess where and how those young players are developed.
If the academies, having swept up all young school county players in their area rather than a selective intake, then try to identify those who will make professional players, they are not making an efficient use of the funding available and the system needs to change.
The clubs have an interest in getting as many young players ‘signed up’ at the earliest possible time, so as to reduce the possibility of missing a talent. But a consequence of signing so many, is the large number of young players released at 18 before they have to be contracted.
Many of those released by the academies become disillusioned and leave the game which, given the time and money invested in their development, is a terrible and unnecessary waste!
It is also possible that a number of those released players could be late developers who having missed out on a contract and are then overlooked. By moving the academy structure to regional bases in universities and taking control of player development away from the Premiership, it may be possible to reduce the number of ‘lost’ players and also increase player retention throughout the game.
Instead of sweeping all county schools players into academies, universities could target specific groups at different ages to allow for those who are late developers. With tailored programmes designed to help young players who develop at different rates, they could stop what is a recurring situation.
As players mature they could be signed to different clubs at different levels in a draft system similar to that of American Football. Such a system would allow players to be signed by clubs designated by the RFU and PRL, thereby improving standards of all clubs in the Premiership and Championship uniformly, which would then improve the standard of competition across both leagues.
Uniformly improving the club game can only be good for the national team as opposed to providing a ‘pension plan’ for the Southern Hemisphere, who are showcasing the talents of their past triumphs and limiting the opportunities for England’s future success.
Under the current system, clubs with generous owners are buying players to achieve success in the short term and are upsetting the balance of the leagues, creating an environment where all are forced to try and buy success, instead of taking the time to develop it.
To change that environment would require the RFU to gamble and change the structure of the academy system and sadly it’s a gamble I don’t think they have the courage to take.
Speaking of gambles, Nigel Wray’s announcement that Saracens will attempt to stage a Premiership game in New York next season is a bold step. Although I thought his plan to play games in South Africa was flawed, New York is a different matter.
South Africa already has a developed rugby culture, while America is a sleeping giant. America has the potential to be a big growth area for the game and while the west coast has promises of All Blacks games soon, the east coast has nothing.
East coast America has a heritage of junior rugby but needs some of the Premiership’s big name clubs to showcase games of quality and intensity to open up new markets in a receptive market place.
Wray has thrown a challenge out to all the other club owners but it is gamble that, if it pays off, will pay handsomely.